Japanese FX giant Monex Group, released forecasted figures today for its interim cash dividend of 1,100 yen per share for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, representing a ten-fold increase over the company's interim forecast for the same period last year.
The Monex Group of companies, which includes western subsidiaries Tradestation and IBFX, has enjoyed a strong performance recently, culminating in high volumes for August 2013, which displayed a 33% spike in trading activity from a year earlier, having recovered from a minor dip during June where the company experienced a 12.9% decline in volumes compared with May this year, a period in which its compatriots enjoyed a period of record volumes.
Monex made a somewhat pioneering move last month in adding MetaTrader 4 to its offering, to run alongside the company's open proprietary platform. MetaTrader 4 is, despite its ubiquity in the international retail FX market, relatively rare within the Japanese retail FX sector.
The company's future plans include further platform diversification, with plans to launch tradable in the future. Monex Group gained experience with these platforms via its acquisitions of western FX companies, however, in Japan's vast retail FX market, which although accounts for between 30% and 40% of the world's retail FX trading volumes, is highly conservative, with clients of domestic firms very loyal to their existing platforms. The results of these moves will be an interesting subject to observe during the coming months.
Approach To Dividend Payments
According to the dividend forecast, the company intends to provide return to its shareholders based upon its business performance, whilst maintaining the conservative practice of retaining sufficient operating capital to facilitate corporate growth.
The Company policy for shareholder’s return adopted from this fiscal year, is to pay out dividends based on the higher of 50% of net income attributable to owners of the company, or 1% of dividend on equity, and to continue to pay out interim dividend.
Monex Group's management will also flexibly consider share buyback. Equity will be the sum of common stock, additional paid-in capital, treasury stock and retained earnings.
Dividend Forecast Per Share For FY March 31, 2014
